Lughnassad

[smokingboot]

LUGHNASSAD

At Lughnassad
I burned them all, my foes
came dancing with the dead
Went up in sparks of paper ire that rose
where I once scratched the doorway of my head
now sunward led
‘Where is the one beloved, The poet’s gold
Where are the songs of all my ancestors
Severed from me, and lost in sea and mire?
They answered, ‘We are on the hills unknown
And in the bone
left from the funeral pyre
The winds we shake and you
And you we wake
hare fleet and falcon eyed beyond the tower
Behold, old Lughnassad! Your people’s fire!

None by the white maned sea could track me then
A wanderer by watchtowers unseen
Nor could the sages of the woven lands
unpick the fairy roads by lantern’s gleam
Their tapestries undone at end of day
The changeling way, as in a fever dream.
Marsh bitterns picked my steps through coldling fens
and called me by their piping;
Bloodied keys and flickering worm
And frostbit moon forlorn
found me old Grendel
biting through the dawn
Riddled with silver, harsh hope to forget
a stranger’s promise:
‘Home for Lughnassad
Where your own people light the fires yet!’

I have no idea what or who this poem is about. But it remains:
©Copyright and Intellectual property, all rights reserved Debbie Gallagher 21/7/2015